I guess you could say that I am a novice teacher. My career as a teacher began in the summer of 2009 when I enrolled in the
Teach Next Year Program at UMass Boston. It was an ideal program in that I was able to get my toes wet as a student teacher at the Randolph Community Middle School as soon as the program started.
My student teaching experience started off a bit overwhelming. It could have been the fact that it was an 8th grade Science class! A classroom filled with so many students each with hyperactive socialites with different needs, interests and capabilities seemed like a lot to handle. Fortunately I lucked out with getting a great mentor, Carma Ohimor, who taught me the basics of classroom management and how to keep 8th graders curious about Science and the world we live in. Carma - you are my HERO!
This is my first year of being a (Biology) teacher at the Everett High School. I can't get over the incredible facilities at the school, the support I receive from the Administration, and all the different characters that make up the student body.
I consider myself to be a Biologist by training and work experience. In 1996, I graduated from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Biology. Soon after graduation, I started working as a Research Associate (RA) in the Human Genotyping Laboratory at Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. I did that for a couple of years before I realized that a daily routine of running PCRs, gel electrophoresis, and analyzing gel results can be quite dull.
While working as an RA, my interests shifted from working in a lab to analyzing the data from experiments. This new interest of mine motivated me to pursue a MS in Bioinformatics at Northeastern University while still working at Millennium. The masters program allowed me to develop computer programming skills in SAS, Perl, and Java.
My new set of skills allowed me to transition from an RA to a Data Analyst position for a Transcriptional Profiling Laboratory at Millennium. The transcriptional profiling lab used nitrocellulose membranes as well as Affymetrix GeneChips for their experiments. My primary role as a Data Analyst was to analyze the data from Quality Control experiments to ensure that batches of membranes or GeneChips met specifications before being used in experiments.I worked as a Data Analyst for about 3 years before Millennium started to cut back on their Research & Development spending which caused my job to be terminated.I became disheartened from my experience working at Millennium. It became apparent to me that the Biotech Industry is quite volatile and job security is always at risk.
So I left the Biotech Industry to work in the health care Industry. Similar to education, heath care will always receive a steady supply of customers. Job security seemed like a low risk in this type of industry. I found employment in the Food and Nutrition Services at the Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. I was hired as a Manager of the Patient Care Services and was responsible for the delivery of meals to the patients' rooms. The interesting part to my job was getting to know what types of food or drink that patients could or could not have based on their medical conditions. The not so glamorous part of the job was the customer service that I provided to patients and the fact that my boss micromanaged me every moment to ad nauseam.
So I stayed at Mount Auburn for about 3-4 years until I decided that my talents were not being utilized at this hospital. I made another career change to become a Science/Biology teacher and the rest is history.
Teach Next Year Program at UMass Boston. It was an ideal program in that I was able to get my toes wet as a student teacher at the Randolph Community Middle School as soon as the program started.
My student teaching experience started off a bit overwhelming. It could have been the fact that it was an 8th grade Science class! A classroom filled with so many students each with hyperactive socialites with different needs, interests and capabilities seemed like a lot to handle. Fortunately I lucked out with getting a great mentor, Carma Ohimor, who taught me the basics of classroom management and how to keep 8th graders curious about Science and the world we live in. Carma - you are my HERO!
This is my first year of being a (Biology) teacher at the Everett High School. I can't get over the incredible facilities at the school, the support I receive from the Administration, and all the different characters that make up the student body.
I consider myself to be a Biologist by training and work experience. In 1996, I graduated from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Biology. Soon after graduation, I started working as a Research Associate (RA) in the Human Genotyping Laboratory at Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. I did that for a couple of years before I realized that a daily routine of running PCRs, gel electrophoresis, and analyzing gel results can be quite dull.
While working as an RA, my interests shifted from working in a lab to analyzing the data from experiments. This new interest of mine motivated me to pursue a MS in Bioinformatics at Northeastern University while still working at Millennium. The masters program allowed me to develop computer programming skills in SAS, Perl, and Java.
My new set of skills allowed me to transition from an RA to a Data Analyst position for a Transcriptional Profiling Laboratory at Millennium. The transcriptional profiling lab used nitrocellulose membranes as well as Affymetrix GeneChips for their experiments. My primary role as a Data Analyst was to analyze the data from Quality Control experiments to ensure that batches of membranes or GeneChips met specifications before being used in experiments.I worked as a Data Analyst for about 3 years before Millennium started to cut back on their Research & Development spending which caused my job to be terminated.I became disheartened from my experience working at Millennium. It became apparent to me that the Biotech Industry is quite volatile and job security is always at risk.
So I left the Biotech Industry to work in the health care Industry. Similar to education, heath care will always receive a steady supply of customers. Job security seemed like a low risk in this type of industry. I found employment in the Food and Nutrition Services at the Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. I was hired as a Manager of the Patient Care Services and was responsible for the delivery of meals to the patients' rooms. The interesting part to my job was getting to know what types of food or drink that patients could or could not have based on their medical conditions. The not so glamorous part of the job was the customer service that I provided to patients and the fact that my boss micromanaged me every moment to ad nauseam.
So I stayed at Mount Auburn for about 3-4 years until I decided that my talents were not being utilized at this hospital. I made another career change to become a Science/Biology teacher and the rest is history.